Cisco: Internet Moves 21 Exabytes per Month

At Wednesday's CTIA keynotes, Cisco gave some amazing predictions for the growth of Internet traffic, both on wired and wireless networks. The company also pointed out the big challenges facing network providers.

At Wednesday's CTIA keynotes, Cisco gave some amazing predictions for the growth of Internet traffic, both on wired and wireless networks. The company also pointed out the big challenges facing network providers.

Cisco CTO Padmasree Warrior said the "global flow of information" - basically all the data moved over networks - has grown from 5 exabytes of data per month in 2007 to 21 exabytes per month this year, and is expected to grow to 56 by 2103. That's the equivalent of moving from 1.4billion DVDS to 12.8 billion DVDs over the network in just six years.

Consumer Internet traffic has grown from 38 exabytes in 2007 to 180 exabytes this year, and is expected to grow to 486 exabytes by 2013. At that point, Warrior said, video will consume 91 percent of the bandwidth. Immersive applications, things are are synchronous and interactive, such as video conferencing, are driving traffic demands.

Warrior said video could account for 66 percent of all mobile traffic by 2013. In addition, the number of devices in the world has grown tremendously and will grow even more in the next few years. In 2007, she said, there were 500 million connected devices - about 1 for every 20 person on the planet. This year, that number has grown to 35 billion - including lots of things other than computers and phones, or about 5 per person. By 2013, Warrior expects that will grow to 1 trillion devices, or 140 devices per person.

Of course, she noted how applications have grown, predicting growth from 160,000 today to about 1.5 million in 2013; and with this how the number of security threats is growing as well.

She showed demos of mobile advertising connecting with digital signage; seamless connections to multiple wireless networks with security, WebEx conversations,; a VOIP handset with video; and a home teleprescence system.

Cisco will focus on video, collaboration, smart communities, and cloud computing in the years ahead. In particular, she mentioned the consumer internet dependent on high-bandwidth pipes for people-to-people communications where video is the killer app, while the "Internet of things" requires low-power, low-bandwidth connections for lots of small devices

Warrior also talked about medical applications and the future role of wireless devices in retail.

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